Jim Miller on Politics

Pseudo-Random Thoughts

The Press Didn't Uncover Watergate: The revelation that Bob Woodward and
Carl Bernstein's secret informant, whom they nicknamed "Deep Throat", was
Mark Felt, Jr.
makes this a good time to dismiss, again, one of the great myths of Watergate, that it was uncovered by the
press, in particular by Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein.

Soon after Woodward and Bernstein's book, All the President's Men, was released, Edward Jay
Epstein wrote a devastating review for Commentary magazine. (The review is included in his fine
collection,
Between Fact and Fiction: The Problem of Journalism.)
Here are two excerpts from the review:

In keeping with the mythic view of journalism, however, the book never describes the "behind-the-scenes"
investigations which actually "smashed the Watergate scandal wide open" — namely the investigations
conducted by the FBI, the federal prosecutors, the grand jury, and the congressional committees. The
work of almost all those institutions, which unearthed and developed all the actual evidence and disclosures
of Watergate, is systematically ignored or minimized by Bernstein and Woodward. Instead, they simply
focused on those parts of the prosecutors' case, the grand jury investigation, and the FBI reports
that were leaked to them.
. . .
In the end, it was not because of the reporting of Woodward and Bernstein, but because of the
pressures put on the conspirators by Judge John Sirica, the grand jury, and congressional committees
that the cover-up was unraveled. After the Watergate conspirators were convicted, Judge Sirica
made it abundantly clear that they could expect long prison sentences unless they cooperated with
the investigation of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Ervin
committee).

(Maybe my memory is faulty, but I don't recall the ACLU, or similar groups, protesting the outrageous
sentences that Sirica used to threaten men who had been convicted of a single non-violent
burglary.)

Epstein has the facts right, but the myth is still so attractive to journalists that I expect it
will last my life time, and probably longer.

(How well did the prosecutors understand Watergate? Well, there's this little bit:

But who was "Deep Throat" and what was his motivation for disclosing information to Woodward and
Bernstein? The prosecutors at the Department of Justice now believe that the mysterious
source was probably Mark W. Felt, Jr., who was then a deputy associate director of the FBI,
because one statement the reporters attribute to "Deep Throat" could only have been made by Felt.

And, of course, there are still Watergate mysteries, in particular, what those who ordered the
burglary hoped to learn by bugging the Democratic headquarters. I have seen, from time to
time, some quite gaudy theories, involving John Dean and his wife, but I have never looked into
them.)

- 6:22 PM, 31 May 2005

More: Here's the
complete article, which I had not
realized was available at Epstein's site.

Coincidence? Probably, but it's an interesting one. The
map, accompanying this
New York Times article
on the the French rejection of the EU constitution, shows the nations which have ratified the EU
constitution, to date. Here's the list: Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia,
Greece, Lithuania, and Slovenia. Do those nations have anything in common?

Those who know even a little World War II history will recognize that the first three were then
ruled by Fascists. (Some would quibble about including Franco's Spain in that list, but most would
not. And many would say his regime evolved away from Fascism after the war.) Austria had a
powerful Nazi movement, which helped Hitler seize power there, during the Anschluss. Hungary
had a significant Fascist movement and was allied to Hitler for much of the war. Slovakia helped
break up Czechoslovakia when Hitler threatened that small nation. So the nations that have
already ratified the treaty include all the formerly Fascist nations of Europe. And none of the
nations, Poland, Britain, and France, that did the most to resist him.

(As far as I know — and my knowledge of these small countries is not extensive —
Greece, Lithuania, and Slovenia were victims during World War II, not perpetrators, although I
believe the latter two supplied some volunteers to Hitler.)

Scientists at Penn State have discovered that minced horseradish root, added to a slurry of hog manure
with a smidgen of calcium peroxide, can greatly reduce odors. Since foul smells emanating
from manure ponds are a major complaint about large-scale hog farms in the United States and overseas,
the research holds promise for making such farms better neighbors.

Dr. Jerzy Dec, a senior research associate with Penn State's Institutes of the Environment, said
the work arose out of earlier experiments involving phenols, chemicals used in various industrial
processes that can pollute water and soil. Those studies had shown that horseradish contained an
enzyme that was effective as a phenol remover.

So now if you need a phenol remover — and who doesn't from time to time — you know where
to look. And if you have any left over, you can use it on your hotdogs.

Even by the brutish standards of Tasmanian devils, Rosie, Harry and Clyde have led a lamentable
life.

A year ago, when the three were each the size of a sesame seed, they wriggled out of their mother's
birth canal and undulated their way to her pouch. There, each locked onto a teat and grew like
gangbusters.

But tragedy struck. Within months, their mother developed devil facial tumor disease - a mysterious
malady that in the last three years has killed nearly half of all the world's devils, marsupials that
are found only in Tasmania. Shortly after she died, the baby devils, grown to the size of tiny
puppies, were found dangling from their mother's pouch, starving to death.

Scientists are so worried about the disease that they are trapping healthy devils for captive
breeding, in case the disease can not be stopped in the wild.

There's much more in the article about this strange disease and the devils, including a description
of their rather violent mating habits.

"It's Just Like Vietnam!" That's what I heard yesterday from local
lefty talk show host Alan Prell,
as he discussed Memorial Day, the war in Iraq, and how much he despises George Bush. (In order of
his increasing enthusiasm for the subject. Although I must add that I have never figured out
exactly why Prell despises Bush. For him, and most of his listeners in Seattle, the
conclusion is so obvious that no argument is needed.)

As Prell intended it, this is an absurd conclusion, since the military situations are vastly
different. For those who do not see the absurdity, columnist Gary Larson patiently explains
some of the differences.

Only in Iraq, it's a case of "Now for Something Entirely Different," with apologies to fellow Monty
Python fans. Quagmire hypothesizes, possibly ideologically-driven, fail utterly to point out
this plain fact: A multi-national coalition in Iraq does not --repeat, NOT--do battle with an
armed-to-the-teeth, Soviet-supplied NVA (North Vietnam Army). Just with a bunch of bloodthirsty
anarchist thugs.

Moreover, Vietnam was a state-to-state war, fought in jungles, not deserts, for reasons of the
Soviet-USA Cold War, not a war on terrorism. Apples are not oranges.

The North Vietnamese had hundreds of thousands of regular troops with heavy equipment,
including hundreds of tanks; the Iraqi terrorists have tens of thousands of irregulars with
small arms and improvised explosive devices. The North Vietnamese were supplied by the Soviet
Union and Communist China, then two of the three greatest conventional powers in the entire world.
The terrorists are receiving some support from Syria and probably Iran.

But in one sense — though Prell does not understand this — the two wars are similar. In
both, the victory of America's enemies required an American withdrawal. And to achieve that
withdrawal, our enemies worked then to undermine our home front, as our enemies do now. Then,
claims of American atrocities are broadcast endlessly, and actual enemy atrocities are ignored or
minimized, as they are now. Then, many on the left and many in the "mainstream" media
campaigned for an American withdrawal — without any consideration of the likely consequences,
as they do now.

Did most on the left or in the media want the Communists to win in Vietnam? Does Prell want
the terrorists to win in Iraq? I would say no to both questions. But I would also say that
many in the "mainstream" media and on the left acted in ways that aided our Communist enemies then,
and that Prell, along with many others in the "mainstream" media and on the left, acts in ways that aid our
terrorist enemies now. So, in this way, this war is "just like Vietnam".

(In the afternoon, conservative talk show host Michael Medved broadcast what amounted to a reply to
Prell. (I think the show was a rerun from previous programs.) Medved used all three
hours of his show to refute the lies about Vietnam told by the left and echoed by the media.
It was clear, to anyone listening to Medved, that he, unlike Prell, had made a serious effort to
understand the our involvement in Vietnam. During the program, he referred to such standard
histories as Michael Lind's
Vietnam: The Necessary War,
Stanley Karnow's
Vietnam: The Necessary War,
and Guenter Lewy's
America in Vietnam.

If Prell had studied these books (or other standard histories), he would have a far different picture
of the war in Vietnam. For example, he would have learned, from Lewy's book, written shortly after
the fall of South Vietnam, that we (and the South Vietnamese) could have won. I don't
know of any serious military experts who disagree with that conclusion now, though I suppose there
must be a few.

Medved said that tapes of the program were available on his
web site (though I didn't find them with a quick look),
so you may be able to hear his arguments, if you missed the show.

Finally, we use exclamation points to show strong emotion. But what strong emotion did Prell
have when he made that statement? It may be going too far to say he was gleeful that the
nation was in, as he saw it, the same "quagmire" as Vietnam, but I can't think of any better word
to describe his emotion. Am I saying that Prell thinks that a disaster for the nation is
fine if it discredits George W. Bush? No, but I do think that, at least some of the time,
he feels that way.)

Supporting The Troops: "Lexington Green" has a practical
suggestion for Memorial Day — and makes a
generous donation to back it up.
And he links to this Winds of Change post by
Joe Katzman, who gives a long list of
ways to support the troops, and not just our troops, but those of our friends and allies, too.

Memorial Day: The holiday grew out of the post Civil War "Decoration
Days", when people in both the North and South decorated the graves of soldiers. That makes this
picture, from Arlington, appropriate, since the cemetery was started during the Civil
War — on, as you may know, Robert E. Lee's plantation, which had been seized by the Union
forces.

The picture was taken by Air Force Master Sgt. Rick Corral, who used it to illustrate this
touching account of the cemetery
and what he found there.

Right Deed For The Wrong Reason: George Will agrees that many in
France and in the Netherlands who vote against the European Union constitution will do so for
foolish reasons.

T.S. Eliot, a better poet than philosopher, wrote: "The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

Nonsense. If the French and Dutch reject the constitution, they will do so for myriad
reasons, some of them foolish. But whatever the reasons, the result will be salutary because the
constitution would accelerate the leeching away of each nation's sovereignty.

Those who openly oppose the constitution in France are mostly so extreme, so far to the left or right,
that they could not fit into either of our major parties. But that does not mean that their vote
is wrong, even if their reasoning is incorrect — as it mostly is. For me, as for
Will, the key question is whether citizens of the European nations should give up on their elected
governments in return for a vague European identity. That bigots like Le Pen, or totalitarians like
the Communists and their allies, are doing the right thing may be ironic, but their wrong reasons do not make
make the deed wrong.

- 8:38 AM, 29 May 2005

More: It wasn't even close.

French voters dealt a crushing defeat to the European constitution today, demonstrating their
determination to punish the leaders of France and of Europe after a bitter campaign that split the
country in two.

As the polls closed, the French Interior Ministry said the no camp had 57.26 percent, compared to
42.74 for yes, with nearly 83 percent of the votes counted.

And the turnout was high.

Turnout was estimated at over 70 percent, far exceeding other recent elections in France. The
final figure was expected to surpass turnout in the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty 13 years ago
that paved the way to the euro

Proponents may have made one great mistake.

Every voter received a copy of the proposed constitution in the mail, and polls suggest that 80
percent either read it or discussed it with friends.

The constitution has 448 articles.

With 448 articles, it is not hard to understand why voters were able to find something to disagree
with, once they began to read and study the document.

(Most Americans will find the use of simple majorities for changes this large strange. Yet
that is much more common elsewhere than our practice of requiring super majorities for everything
from bond issues to Senate votes to Constitutional amendments.)

"Marginalized And Denigrated": This morning when I tuned in to the
"Weekday" program on our local PBS affiliate, KUOW,
I heard something unusual. Before I tell you what that was, let me give those who are not
familiar with the program a brief description. On Fridays, Weekday brings in three journalists
to discuss current issues with the host, Steve Scher. (This week assistant producer Katy
Sewall has been substituting for Scher.) In recent weeks, the three journalists have been Knute
Berger, editor of the Seattle Weekly, Susan Paynter, columnist for the Seattle PI, and Danny
Westneat, columnist for the Seattle Times. As they discuss the issues, they also read
emails and take phone calls from listeners.
There are various ways I could summarize the Friday Weekday program. I could say it was four
journalists talking to each other. Or, I could say, with equal accuracy, four lefties, or four
Democrats, talking to each other. And if you have listened to the program even a few times,
you will have noticed that few Republicans, independents, conservatives, or moderates email the show,
and even fewer call in.
But today one did. A listener called in, identified herself as pro-choice Republican woman
from the Eastside suburbs and told the group that she thought they had "marginalized and denigrated"
her and Republicans in general. She noted, as I have, that the show does not attract many
Republicans, and wondered aloud whether any of the four even had a Republican friend. Although
she was angry, she made a rational argument and noted that she liked to listen to NPR and
that she was pleased by a point that Westneat had made. (Westneat had just argued that,
despite what some on the left think, Bush really did win last November's election.)
This woman's speech got my attention, since I agreed with every word, and have had similar opinions
for quite some time. I was hoping for more, but host Katy Sewall redirected the conversation
by saying that she didn't want the woman to feel "marginalized and denigrated". Both then
apologized, as women often do, and the program drifted away from the serious allegations that
the woman had made.
Though it drifted away from her charges, Sewall did give the three journalists a chance to dispute them.
Westneat played the clown and took pride in the fact that the woman had liked some of what he had
said. Berger noted that news organizations respond to their readers (or listeners) by matching
their ideologies, without, perhaps, realizing how that discredited both the Seattle Weekly and
KUOW. I don't recall what Paynter said, if anything.
But none of the three disputed the woman's charges, or even asked her what they had said that made her
feel "marginalized and denigrated". None even — and I am old enough so that I was hoping
for this — claimed to have a Republican friend. (Could any of the three have recycled that
old bigot's line and said: "Some of my best friends are Republicans?" I don't know any of them
personally, so I can't say, but I doubt it.)

So, in effect, they conceded her charges. But what interests me even more is that they did
not want to discuss them. Was that because they didn't think they could refute them?
Or because they have such a low opinion of Republicans that they prefer to avoid talking to them
about issues? This response, or I should say lack of response, is in sharp contrast to the
practice on most commercial talk programs, where hosts usually give extra time to people holding
opposing views. Why didn't they respond to her charges? I don't know, but I'll ask
them.

Finally, host Katy Sewall ended the program in a way that supports the idea journalists are out of
touch with much of the public. Suppose you were talking to a veteran, or someone currently
in one of the services. How would you bring up the Memorial Day weekend? Would you
thank them for their service and ask them how they planned to commemorate the day? Most of
us would, I hope. Katy Sewall just asked the three journalists how they intended to enjoy
themselves. (None said that they planned to honor our military.)

Want To Look At Some Global Warming Numbers? Climatologist has
George H. Taylor has some for the
Pacific Northwest. He has
some nice graphs showing the effects of "urban heat islands", and makes this significant point:

The warmest decade in the last century in Oregon, according to rural station records, was the
1930s. The last several decades have indeed seen a warming, but current temperatures remain
below those reported 70 years ago. What's more, one must use temperature data with great
caution in order to avoid contamination caused by land use changes, including the urban heat island effect.

(As always, when I discuss global warming, I urge you to look at my
disclaimer, if you haven't already.)

Iraq insurgents attached explosives to a dog today in a bid to bomb a military convoy near the
northern oil centre of Kirkuk but the animal was the only casualty, police said.

The insurgents wrapped an explosive belt around the dog's body and detonated it as the convoy passed
through Dakuk, 40km south of Kirkuk, the town's police chief Colonel Mohammed Barzaji said.

"The dog was torn apart by the explosion which caused neither injury among the soldiers nor any
damage," said Barzaji, adding that the bomb had been detonated outside a Shiite mosque.

"Eight suspects have been detained," he said.

Haven't seen any reaction from PETA yet, but I recall that when Palestinian terrorists used
donkeys for the same thing, PETA was outraged. (PETA did not object to killing
Israelis, but to using donkeys to do so. I wish I were making that up, but I'm not.)

(Alan Clark, in Barbarossa, his history of the Eastern Front in World War II, says that the
Soviets trained dogs, laden with explosives, to crawl under German tanks. It wasn't much of
a success, since even trained dogs found the battlefield terrifying.)

By Way of
Timothy Goddard, I learned that
I had joined (without knowing it) the
Coalition of the Chillin',
the folks who think that Republicans should relax, at least for now, about the compromise reached over
the filibusters of Bush's judicial nominations.

(Not sure whether I agree with the Coalition's final point about the Lord of the Rings. It
has been so long since I read Tolkien's books that I am no longer familiar with the plot.)

Good News, If True: The most recent polls suggest that the
French will vote no
(or, if you prefer "non") on the new European constitution.

The leader of France's ruling party has privately admitted that Sunday's referendum on the
European constitution will result in a "no" vote, throwing Europe into turmoil.

"The thing is lost," Nicolas Sarkozy told French ministers during an ill-tempered meeting.
"It will be a little 'no' or a big 'no'," he was quoted as telling Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime
Minister, whom he accused of leading a feeble campaign.

It is good news because the proposed constitution is a mess that will benefit the pampered
(and often corrupt) EU bureaucrats, but make matters slightly worse for the average European.
When the Europeans (most of them, anyway) adopted a common currency, skeptics said that it would
hurt the European economies. For the most part, they have been stumbling ever since —
not that they were doing that well before. The closer ties of the new constitution would
make matters worse.

The facts about the poor economic performance of the European Union are not a secret. The
facts do not matter to those European elites who want to drag their countries into a closer European
Union. Why? Some want to prevent World War I from happening again, though the danger
of that seems low to me. Some want to make Europe a counterweight to the United States,
though they seldom explain why increasing the rivalry between us and them would benefit, us, them,
or the rest of the world. And more than a few want a piece of the great Brussels pie,
where bureaucrats can get rich on the perks, and politicians, at least unscrupulous politicians, can
do even better.

Since I wish the Europeans well — yes, even the French — I hope they reject this new
constitution.

(Dan Drezner has a summary of recent French poll results graphed
here. And if you want to see
more reasons for skepticism, you can find them here.)

- 7:33 AM, 26 May 2005

More: As a savvy emailer reminded me, the
traders are betting heavily against
a yes vote this Sunday.

Anatole Kaletsky gives some of the
dismal facts about EU
economic performance, but misses the variation among the countries. A few, Ireland for instance,
are doing quite well and the expansionist policies that Kaletsky proposes would cause trouble for
them. (What should the Europeans do? Kaletsky has an answer that would ruin Paul Krugman's
day: Europeans should do "exactly what America did in similar circumstances in 2001".)

And Timothy Garton Ash, who wants the French to vote yes, supports my point about the European
constitution, with this description:

Let's be frank: this constitutional treaty is a messy, uninspiring piece of work. It has
neither the simplicity, the elegance nor the fundamental ordering functions of a constitution. In
reality, it's not a constitution - it's a treaty. It was a mistake to make so many detailed
legalistic and bureaucratic provisions an integral part of the document presented to every voter

And this comes from a proponent. And not just an ordinary proponent. Ash compares this
vote — I am not making this up — to the war crisis of 1940. He admits he is
overdramatising his argument, but doesn't entirely give up the comparison.

The Weather Was Tolerable today, so I went out and took a few pictures
This one is taken looking west through a Kirkland condominium. The ship in the center of the
picture is a surplus NOAA research ship, now being used as a breakwater.

The 6,866 foot high mountain near the center of the horizon is the Brothers. It is about 45 miles
away. To get there from the Kirkland waterfront (if you were flying), you would cross Lake Washington,
Seattle a little north of downtown, the Puget Sound, the Kitsap peninsula, and the Hood Canal.

More On The Filibuster Fight: Dick Morris comes to much the same
conclusions that I did, and adds this nasty, unfair, but very funny crack about
Robert Byrd.

Byrd we can discount. He probably voted to sustain the filibuster in case a new civil-rights
bill comes down the pike. After all, it was his legendary 14-hour talkathon to kill the 1964
bill that still resonates in our memory.

What does the vaunted compromise actually do? First, it guarantees an up-or-down floor vote on
three of the most reactionary judges ever to come before the Senate: Janice Rogers Brown, William Pryor,
and Priscilla Owen. It was Democratic resistance to these appellate nominees that caused Frist
to go nuclear in the first place. He and George W. Bush won. The three judges are now
likely to be confirmed, and other extremist nominees will keep coming.

Second, the deal commits the GOP to relent on the plan to scrap the filibuster, but only for now.
Frist is free to revive the nuclear option any time he likes, say, when the first Bush nominee to the
Supreme Court comes before the Senate. Frist can hold this threat over the heads of Democrats,
who are committed to minimize the use of filibusters.

(By "reactionary" one should understand that Kuttner means judges who, for instance, agree with the
majority on same sex marriages and racial preferences.)

From this post, I would
say that Tom Maguire is in the "kick the can down the road school" and thinks that the agreement
just postpones the fight. And he draws attention to these key paragraphs from a
Fox story.

Democrats, pointing to a slight change in wording from an earlier draft, said the deal would preclude
Republicans from attempting to deny them the right to filibuster. Republicans said that was not
ironclad, but valid only as long as Democrats did not go back on their word to filibuster only in
extraordinary circumstances.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the issue had been discussed at the meeting
in McCain's office, and was "clearly understood" by those in attendance.

I can add to that. Three of the seven Republicans who signed the agreement, Mike
DeWine of Ohio, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and John Warner of Virginia, have said that if the
Democrats filibuster any of Bush's current nominees, they will support a rule change immediately.
(The first two said that on the record yesterday and talk show host Tony Snow just added Warner to that
list.)

The argument that this is a disguised Democratic surrender gets support from this
article
in the usually very well informed newspaper, The Hill.

Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the deal a "significant victory" for the country,
democracy, and "every American."

Reid added that other Michigan judges nominated for the sixth Circuit "are going to be approved."
Frist said he expected other stalled nominees, Richard Griffin, Susan Nielson, David McKeague, and
Thomas Griffith, to get votes.

If Frist and Reid are correct on those judges, then I would have to agree with Kuttner that it was a
big win for Bush.

Law professor Paul Campos raises a more
fundamental question:
Why did we ever decide that our federal judges should be legislators, deciding the most fundamental
questions in society, but never answering to the voters? It was a good question when it was
raised by people on the left during the New Deal; it is still a good question, though it is usually
raised by people on the right.

Finally, a New York Times editorial writer adds an unintentional
comic touch to the discussion.

If nothing else, the deal to end the Senate's "nuclear option" showdown was heartening in that it
did demonstrate that moderates still exist in Washington, and actually have the capacity to work
together to get things done.

Why comic? Because there are no moderates on the New York Times editorial board and there
will never be any as long as Gail Collins runs it.